Why in ASP.NET MVC 3 the default route is not working for a controller called "ContentController"?

Question

I have a brand new asp.net mvc 3 project. I did not modify the routes in any way. I have a controller called PageController and another controller call ContentController.

When I browse to domain.com/Page then the Index action on the Page controller gets executed as expected and displays the Index view.

When I browse to domain.com/Content I get a 404 error. If I browse to domain.com/Content/Index then it works fine.

How do I troubleshoot this single route?

    public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
    {
        routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}");

        routes.MapRoute(
            "Default", // Route name
            "{controller}/{action}/{id}", // URL with parameters
            new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional } // Parameter defaults
        ); 
    }

I tried adding an additional route:

    public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
    {
        routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}");

        routes.MapRoute(
            "Default", // Route name
            "{controller}/{action}/{id}", // URL with parameters
            new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional } // Parameter defaults
        ); 
        routes.MapRoute(
             "Content", // Route name
             "Content/{action}/{id}", // URL with parameters
             new { controller = "Content", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional } // Parameter defaults
         );

    }

But the additional route did not change the application's behavior.

What could be causing this?

Answer 1

its because there is a physical folder called content. having a controller with the same name as a physical folder will probably have some adverse affects on your website.